New York Experience - Essay Example

Review The essence of this article is a remembrance of good times experienced during the summer vacation, in the big of New York as a child. This remembrance by the author rekindles the fond memories of summer vacations that linger on in any reader. The article is interesting, as it jogs the memory that as a child it was simple things like eating ice creams, playing in water, or playing with newly found playmates that enlivened the summer vacations, and heightened the joy experienced. The author develops the joyful experiences of summer vacations in New York in a systematic and coherent manner.

Starting with the sounds and smells that are a hallmark of summer vacations, the author moves on to the activities and experiences that can be expected to be a part of the summer vacation experiences in a big city. The friendliness and the bonhomie during vacation time are brought out well by the author. It is in its simplicity and the totality of the picture it presents that lie its strengths. These are very plausible experiences that children go through during summer vacations and it is these simple things that linger in the minds, even with the passage of time.

It is easy for the reader to become a part of the article, as it contains experiences that are similar to what a reader would have had during the summer vacations as a child. One criticism that could be targeted at the article is the position of the third paragraph, which provides the details of the delights of hot dogs and ice creams consumed during vacation time. At the start of the article the author opens the door to the summer vacation experiences through the sounds and smells of foods that bring joy in summer, but then in the second paragraph digresses to frolic with icy cool water in summer.

In the third paragraph the author returns to food joys of summer. By interchanging the positions of the second and third paragraphs, the criticism of digressing in the article can be removed. The article is simple and there is clarity in what the author wishes to express. This makes for easy reading and easy comprehension. However, there are some places, where better use of the English language would have helped in making for easier understanding. For example in paragraph two the author states “summertime is a child’s beloved season and it marks the end of school and the beginning of the much awaited summer vacation”.

There is lack of clarity here on what makes the season beloved to a child. Is it the close of school or the start of the summer vacation or is there anything else to it that makes summer season beloved to children? Again in the third paragraph the author writes “believe you me these are the "must haves" of summer, of course they are not always consumed in that order”. The use of you and me together is either a typing error or a grammatical mistake, either of which could have been easily corrected, by re-reading the article with the purpose of correcting such mistakes.

Recommendations for revising the article are limited to the interchanging of paragraphs two and three and rereading the article to remove typing errors and grammatical errors, and strengthening of the use of English language, where there is an apparent weakness in it.